Wednesday, February 18, 2015

If I Were A Rich Man....

In Israel, the head of a yeshiva is also a best-selling and award-winning novelist. In America, we get excited about holiday-themed a capella parodies, newly (and briefly) observant reggae artists, paint-the-parsha programs, and novelists who do not know the difference between Tosafot and the Tosefta but know and use a dozen Yiddish words for genitalia.

A reader might be tempted to ask: “So what?” As long as Modern Orthodoxy is producing rabbis, teachers, and enough big earners to support the community’s infrastructure and personnel, does it matter that it is not producing playwrights, poets, and pianists?

It does. Modern Orthodoxy is, or ought to be, a rich and challenging lifestyle that profoundly engages a broad range of thick Jewish experiences. It has a great deal to offer the Jewish world and the broader religious world. But without a vibrant creative class, there is no communal unpacking of that experience, no collective expression or catharsis, no mirror to show the community how it looks from the outside, no legacy of the community’s unique contributions.